CRICKET
The Central Gippsland Cricket Association will meet with six breakaway clubs from the Traralgon and District Cricket Association tonight to discuss the formation of the Latrobe Valley Cricket Association.
While no official motion will be raised at tonight’s meeting, representatives of the 18 clubs will vote on whether they wish to pursue the breakaway league and set a date for a special general meeting where an official vote will take place.
Traralgon West, CATS, Churchill, MTY Raiders, Centrals and Glengarry expressed their intent to breakaway from the TDCA in an open letter last week.
“Many of the clubs already have a mandate from their members to pursue the LVCA vision,” the letter reads.
“Those that didn’t were taking the matter back to their members.
“It is important to note that should the LVCA be realised that it was unanimous amongst the 18 clubs present … that the LVCA would be wholly inclusive and would continue to work towards the visions presented by the Latrobe Valley Cricket Review Committee in 2017.”
CGCA president Wayne Mills said he “wasn’t sure” how the votes would fall at tonight’s meeting but was hopeful the LVCA would gain the support of “at least five” of the six TDCA clubs in attendance.
“We had four certainties in Churchill, MTY Raiders, CATS and Traralgon West and Centrals now makes it five,” Mills said.
It comes after Centrals members voted to seek affiliation with the LVCA at a club meeting on May 11.
In a statement, the club said 95 per cent of members expressed support for the breakaway league.
“The motion was raised that the Centrals seek affiliation with the LVCA, subject to a minimum of four other clubs doing so,” the statement reads.”
Mills said Glengarry was the only club that would not lodge a vote tonight because it is yet to decide its official position on the LVCA.
He also admitted the recommendations of the Latrobe Valley Cricket Review Committee would be difficult to uphold if only five TDCA clubs voted to pursue the breakaway league.
“It will make it hard to have a divisional structure if we’ve only got five TDCA clubs and 11 in total,” Mills said.
“We need 12 clubs to make two divisions and that’s something we’ll have to work through.
“We intend to go by what the committee suggested as closely as we can and, depending on how tonight goes, we will get the sub-committee formed to go through the constitution and bylaws and address those things.”
The CGCA will hold its annual general meeting immediately following tonight’s vote, when a date will be set for a special general meeting to vote on dissolving the association.
“We will give our member clubs 21 days notice as per the constitution and they have to vote 75 per cent in favour [of the dissolution],” Mills said.
“We’ll have no problems with our clubs doing everything that we need to do to get the new association going,” Mills said.
“The next meeting will be an AGM so we can get the league started in order to affiliate with the Victorian Country Cricket League and Cricket Victoria.”
